We’ve rewritten how videos work here on WordPress.com from the ground-up and taken inspiration from the great products at Vimeo and Smugmug, and are pleased to formally offer our video upgrade to everyone. Here’s a sample of what it can do especially for those sweltering in the heat right now:

With the video upgrade (available on your upgrades page, bottom left of dashboard navigation) when you upload a video of almost any format we’ll crunch it into several different formats just right for streaming on the web, DVD quality, HD quality, and even optimized for iTunes and Miro.

Videos can be streamed and embedded here on WordPress.com or on any site around the world, even in full HD.

The video feature was part of the space upgrade previously and for those that helped us test it we have now extended a one-year free video upgrade. We just want to make sure existing video users can continue to use it without any hassle. For new users, the video upgrade costs about 5 bucks a month.

As an added bonus, each video has stats attached to it so you can see how often they’re being viewed, and more stats are coming.

In the future we’ll be working on giving your viewers more options for streaming and downloading videos, better and more in-depth stats, more player customization, and a way for WordPress.org users to use and embed the new player easier.

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HD seems to work well on Youtube, about half the videos I watch there have it, but many video pros prefer not to put their videos there because of licensing and encoding issues. (Is my understanding, I’m not a video pro!)

We try to run every part of our business in a way that’s sustainable and supportable for the long-term. By charging a fair amount for a superior service we can continue to invest in expanding the feature to be a great option for high-end video, just like WordPress is a fantastic option for high-end blogging. (And you wouldn’t believe how expensive it is to host and stream video, which is part of the reason we’ve waited to launch this until now, we’ve been working at getting the costs down.

>>The video feature was part of the space upgrade previously and for those that helped us test it we have now extended a one-year free video upgrade…. For new users, the video upgrade costs about 5 bucks a month.<<

What happens to the previously uploaded videos (under the space upgrade provision) after the end of one-year free upgrade?

From your message, it appears that the bloggers who have previously been able to upload videos – if they have purchased additional space – will no longer be able to do that after a year, unless they pay 5 bucks a month. I am concerned about the videos I have uploaded to my paid space upgrade account.

Well, the video in this post for one. 😉 And, I’m particularly smitten with both the iPhone and the P2 theme introduction videos. Just flip that HD switch on and play them in full screen mode. Pretty cool stuff.

Matt: “HD seems to work well on Youtube, about half the videos I watch there have it, but many video pros prefer not to put their videos there because of licensing and encoding issues. (Is my understanding, I’m not a video pro!)”

Agreed, but it would be cool to play those videos in the WordPress player, won’t it?

Sweet. Bikes are maybe one maybe one step down the video food chain from cooking. I may just have to give Dutch Bike videos a whirl in HD…. If nothing else it’s an excuse to get a real camera. Thanks Matt!

I am making a film blog of life in Antarctica during the winter when 21 of us are isolated on base. I have been using youtube to upload my films then bringing them across to wordpress by embedding them in. Would it be easier puting them straight on wordpress and would the quality be the same better or worse???

One feature that has NOT changed — and I wish that there were an option giving us Videopress users a choice in the matter — is that WordPress videos don’t purely stream, but actually load into the computers of the people viewing them. That is to say, anyone viewing a WordPress video in a web browser such as Safari can copy the video’s URL and then download it onto their hard drive — EVEN when the embedding option is turned off. If the videos truly streamed, the way they do on a Website such as Hulu, it would be impossible to download the videos. To me (and perhaps to others, as well) this is a very important distinction, because most of the videos that I post are exclusively mine, and I don’t like the idea of other people being free and able to download that material and then repost it elsewhere.

I could hardly watch videos on net thanks to the average speed (mere 256 kbps). But I may buy upgrades in future just the same when I am settled and get a high speed connection! 🙂

Matt, you may consider adding the name of the person you reply to here because that will make it easy for us to follow your replies in the mailbox itself (e.g.: Kirkfwatson, My video pros tells me that…. both)!

Well, you guys rock! I presume there is no limit, then, on how many videos one can upload? In other words, the size of one’s blog storage will no longer determine the number or quality of video uploads because you guys are now in the business of video hosting. That’s fantastic! I am about to announce this lovely new feature to my blog audience of rabid video consumers. In my opinion, $60 bucks a year is more than fair. Here’s why:

I host a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds fan blog and often feature rare performance and interview videos of Nick and the band. Since most of the videos are collector’s items, I cannot upload them to YouTube in case they are deleted in one of their copyright violation purges. So, this is fabulous news, indeed. Thanks, WordPress!

I’m loving the improvements to WordPress.com with the recent twitter widget and now this!

I would certainly consider paying for this upgrade, particularly for the podcasting possibilities and because embedded YouTube videos look so ugly. The one thing kind of putting me off is that by ditching YouTube you miss out on the community of it that people would get involved in when clicking through from a YouTube video.

Slightly weird question, but is there any way that by clicking on the video it could link through to somewhere? Like it’s YouTube counterpart.

I think that 60 bucks a year is too much for this tool. What i really dont understand is what is the diference between this service and the free service in youtube and Dailymotion embeding them with vodpod? This is not a sarcasm, I only want to know.

I don’t mind paying the price. I’ve been embedding small video clips all along anyway. Now I must simply get an HD video camera and improve my video skills and content. 😀 Thanks WordPress! This is a fantastic improvement!

Ah. Whenever something sounds too good to be true… So WordPress now charges an additional $60 per year for video upload privileges. A feature that was free with a nominal 5 GB space upgrade (a very affordable $20 per year). I appreciate the free year of VideoPress and I agree that HD is lovely and all but it not worth paying 3 times the cost of my blog storage. Worse, it is a no-choice charge. Video bloggers must pony up the extra $60/year or we may no longer upload videos at all.

Thanks for waking me up to reality. I haven’t had a good dose in a while.. SIGH.

I understand that WordPress.com want to cover their expenses but 60 $ is too much for a feature that you can get almost anywhere for free. Maybe its interesting for video geeks, but not for me. For 60 Bucks I could easily get a cool hosting plan and then stream those videos from there – plus the space upgrade which is included in it then as well.